FRx life

[Kath]

Greetings:

Can you possibly explain to me why the best financial reporting
software application is going away?? I have been using and training
clients using FRx since 1997. To say I am disappointed to see it go
away would be putting it mildy. The options being presented to replace
the product do not come close to the reporting capabilities or the
ease of use of FRx.

Besides the obvious 32 bit vs. 64 bit issues, I am hoping someone can
explain this to me. I certainly am having a heck of a time explaining
to clients why I have to replace their current product (that they
LOVE) with something that has less than 60% of the functionality. AND
to use it properly, my clients will have to be MORE THAN PROFICIENT in
Excel. Why would they want to spend $1,xxx on something that exports
data to Excel, so they can manipulate it; when they can export the
data for free using ODBC??

Thanks,
Kathleen

[Mark Polino [MVP] (DynamicAccounting.net)]

My slightly cynical answer is:

1) FRx is written in old VB and it's been painful to update it to work
with Vista, not to mention Windows 7, in it's current form
2) FRx is actually used by many non-Dynamics ERP package and MS gets
to give them a little pain when it goes away
3) The FRx replacement was supposed to be here several years ago but
was mired in a number of issue including closing the FRx offices in
Denver and the Performance Point mess
4) It has no hope of supporting the new XBRL taxonomies due to design
issues
5) The Access/Jet storage engine has been a source of derision for
years. Moving the data to SQL is a huge leap forward
6) It's flaky. It's always been flaky. True, we've learned to deal
with it but that doesn't mean that it's not full of...quirks

Having said that, your clients can stay on FRx for a good long time.
It's new clients that have to use Mangaement Reporter. Existing client
can I'm sure I would I say that it has less than 60% of the
functionality but it does have some holes. I'm not a fan of requiring
a server and IIS to run it just as products like SSRS are moving away
from an IIS requirement.

By the way, with the new DCO licenses you really can't say that they
can export their data for free using ODBC. At least, that's
Microsoft's stance.

Mark

Post by Kath
Can you possibly explain to me why the best financial reporting
software application is going away?? I have been using and training
clients using FRx since 1997. To say I am disappointed to see it go
away would be putting it mildy. The options being presented to replace
the product do not come close to the reporting capabilities or the
ease of use of FRx.
Besides the obvious 32 bit vs. 64 bit issues, I am hoping someone can
explain this to me. I certainly am having a heck of a time explaining
to clients why I have to replace their current product (that they
LOVE) with something that has less than 60% of the functionality. AND
to use it properly, my clients will have to be MORE THAN PROFICIENT in
Excel. Why would they want to spend $1,xxx on something that exports
data to Excel, so they can manipulate it; when they can export the
data for free using ODBC??
Thanks,
Kathleen

[rivers1]

Kathleen,

I feel the same way. I worked for FRx/GP/Microsoft for many years. But the
reason the decision to kill off FRx (and it's not really dead, just running
out of steam...) is so MS is not supporting their competitors products. They
make GP/AX/NAV/SL. And the next generation of FRx (called Management
Reporter) is available or will be available to users of those systems.

There is no technical reason FRx or MR could not work with existing or
future non-Microsoft GL products. They just do not want it to.

For all the other GL's FRx supports, there is no direct replacement as you
have found. Many players out there, and depending on your specific GL you
may be stuck with what they decide on.

If you would like to discuss further please let me know directly at
***@MSXGroup.com. We have extensive experience in FRx, Forecaster,
Management Reporter and PerformancePoint Server.

We offer services, support, training classes and FREE webinars to which you
can sign up at our website http://MSXGroup.com.

Thakns

Rob
--
Rob Iversen
MSX Group
www.msxgroup.com

Post by Kath
Can you possibly explain to me why the best financial reporting
software application is going away?? I have been using and training
clients using FRx since 1997. To say I am disappointed to see it go
away would be putting it mildy. The options being presented to replace
the product do not come close to the reporting capabilities or the
ease of use of FRx.
Besides the obvious 32 bit vs. 64 bit issues, I am hoping someone can
explain this to me. I certainly am having a heck of a time explaining
to clients why I have to replace their current product (that they
LOVE) with something that has less than 60% of the functionality. AND
to use it properly, my clients will have to be MORE THAN PROFICIENT in
Excel. Why would they want to spend $1,xxx on something that exports
data to Excel, so they can manipulate it; when they can export the
data for free using ODBC??
Thanks,
Kathleen
.